


Fate and Pawn

by NuMo



Series: Chrysalis [3]
Category: Warehouse 13
Genre: F/F, Holiday hijinks, Kidfic, Probably jossed come April, but plot too
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-14
Updated: 2012-12-24
Packaged: 2017-11-21 02:53:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 16,817
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/592636
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NuMo/pseuds/NuMo
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Follow our heroes on a journey through family issues, moral dilemmas and soft-spoken night-time conversations. Might contain cookies, and possibly Christmas stunts. </p><p>I do apologize in advance for changing Hallowe’en to Thanksgiving. The story called for it; I think it works far better this way.</p><p>---</p><p>This is the third part of the <a href="http://archiveofourown.org/series/30332">Chrysalis Series</a>. It doesn’t work without having read parts one and two, I’m afraid. </p><p>---</p><p>WH13 and its characters don’t belong to me, I’m just playing and I promise I’ll return them when I’m done. I do own my own characters, and, as always, I love me some feedback.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Last time on “Warehouse 13 of NuMo’s little corner of the universe”

“You do realize that the first official document that mentions the two of us together doesn’t list my actual name, do you.” Helena’s slight smirk was back, and somewhere not so deep inside her, Myka’s heart breathed relief at the sight.

“It does make us this child’s parents, though,” she shot back. “Or as good as.”

“So what does that make us?” Helena quipped instantly, crooking a finger first at Myka, then at herself.

Myka laughed aloud.

They would figure this out.

~~~

Helena’s face grew soft. “I have been informed that, and I quote, clinging to my pain was unfair, ill-mannered, and counterproductive. It appears your argument goes right along with that assessment.” She shook out her hair in a quick motion – tension relief, Myka knew. “It is… a novel approach.” Helena’s mouth twitched ever so slightly on the last words.

“Which should be right up your alley, considering,” Myka agreed, having finally wrestled her laugh down into a smile.

Helena nodded solemnly. “Strangely enough, spending a day with a child who looks to me for guidance and safe-keeping, even knowing that this is to be more than just a day-long matter…” she sighed, but not nearly as heavily as Myka would have feared. “It wasn’t as… haunting as I had feared. Not that it was easy; never that, but…”

“It wasn’t such a bad thing, was it,” Myka agreed again.

~~~

“She’s right, you know,” Pete chimed in, drawing several pairs of surprised eyes. “What? We do! _This_ is tearing us apart!” He pointed at all of them in turn, landing on Artie last. “You _going_ would tear us apart, Artie. We need to work through this, and people usually do that by talking, you know. Not by running away.”

“I wasn’t running. Not at my time of life.” And now, finally, Myka felt free to laugh because that surly tone surely meant they’d succeeded.

“You were so running, Jesse Owens,” Claudia said, punching Artie’s arm, obviously thinking the same thing. “You were so running I considered changing my name to Wile E. Donovan for a moment there. You know, actually that might…” Her words faded away as she and Pete pulled Artie towards the living room again, leaving Myka alone with Helena who, apparently, was trying to explain what they’d just witnessed to a wide-eyed four-year-old.

“You… did you really…” Myka began when Helena stopped talking.

“Sacrifice myself?” Helena asked back. “If I did, I certainly don’t remember,” she quipped.

Myka flinched and looked away. Then she heard Helena say something to Livia, heard the double thud of kid’s feet hitting the floor, heard the rapid patter of said feet running towards where the rest of the family had gone. Felt fingers on her shoulder.

“I apologize, Myka,” Helena said softly, hand falling away again. “I have this unfortunate penchant for making light of things that seem too harsh to bear when taken seriously.” 

“When did you put my picture in your locket, anyway?” Myka asked on impulse. She still remembered giving it back. Helena’s smile had broken like sunlight through clouds, like it did now.

“I daresay you’d rather like to know why, not when, don’t you?”

“Well, I can kinda guess, I think,” Myka replied, still grinning, and threaded her arm through Helena’s, setting out for the living room. _God, I do hope she didn’t use the one Pete took when I-_

“Figured it out, have you?” Helena murmured, with a sidelong glance, then stopped just inside the door. “By the way, there is another solution to the rooming arrangements, you know.”

“Hm?” Myka hummed, attention in equal halves on the question of which picture might be in Helena’s locket, and on Pete’s attempt to impress Livia with how he could drink milk and then release it through his nostrils.

“Well, since my room adjoins yours anyway, I could move in with you, and Livia could have mine.”

Four pair of eyes landed, with a veritable crash of silence, on the two of them, and Livia giggled as drops of milk landed, forgotten, in Pete’s gaping mouth.

~~~

And now it was half past eight and everyone was sitting in the living room winding down and the kid was, finally, happily, in bed, and Myka still hadn’t called her parents.

She should. She was not a procrastinator. She really should call. So she grabbed her phone, gave Helena a fleeting smile, got her jacket, and headed for the porch swing and its blanket again.

“Myka! That’s a nice surprise; how are you, honey?”

“Mom, there’s been a… a change in my life. A major one. A good one, Mom,” she added quickly, hearing her mother suck in a breath. “A good one. Only… only it’s one I really rather wouldn’t talk about over the phone, you know,” she suddenly realized. “Can I… do you… would you have time over the weekend?”

“Wh- Myka! But of course we do. You’ll spend the night, of course; I’ll fix your old room for you-”

“Mom, just… just, please, would you… could you fix the guest room? I… I won’t be coming alone.”

There was the distinct sound of pottery, or glass, shattering on the floor. “Of course you’re not coming alone,” Jean Bering said in a deceptively level voice. “Oh, sweetheart… Myka… honey, you need to tell me everyth-”

“Saturday, Mom, okay? Please?”

~~~

“What? What kind of…?” Myka’s father flared, oblivious to his wife’s hushing motions. “Goddamnit, a child is a serious commitment, not something you agree to on a whim, however well-meant.”

“Warren!”

“Mister Bering, I assure you-”

Myka glared at her father. “Dad, there was _nothing_ impulsive about it, from neither of us. I knew Laura only for the shortest time, really, but she did not strike me as the fickle type, and I seriously hope you’re not implying that I, or Helena…” Realization dawned. “Dad, this is not a phase, or a fad, or something. I’ve known Helena for a long time, and believe me, I-”

“How long?” he interrupted. “And how did the two of you meet?”

Helena stood up, suddenly, and walked around the table’s corner to stand behind Myka’s chair, setting her hands on Myka’s shoulders. “Almost three years.” She squeezed slightly at sensing the tension in them. “And, Mister Bering, I’ve loved your daughter from the start.”

Whatever warm feelings rose in Myka at those words were instantly dissipated by the look of outrage on her father’s face. “So _you’re-_ ” he began, pointing a finger.

Myka’s voice, intent and low and clear, stopped him short. “Dad, if you are even _thinking_ of accusing Helena of having seduced me, or, or… or mislead me, or whatever, I swear to God we’ll leave this instant.”

~~~

“God, Helena.” She tipped her forehead onto white-knuckled hands clenched around the wheel and fought for even breaths. Let the past be in the past, right? “Do you ever try to think,” she said when she could, “that if none of it had happened, the two of us wouldn’t be here right now, having this conversation?”

“It so happens,” Helena said in a voice that told Myka she knew very well what Myka had meant by ‘it’, “that I am trying to do exactly that exactly this moment.” She sighed deeply. “It is a… a thought.”

“A thought.” Myka rotated her head to look at her. “A thought?”

“One that seems almost too immense to grasp,” Helena added.

Somewhere, Myka found a grin. “H.G. Wells can’t get her head around a thought? That’s a first.”

Helena huffed slightly, but returned a smile. “It does encompass my entire life, you know. Including a century in bronze. But… well. It’s a thought. If all my past steps and missteps have led me here…” she drew a deep breath, “well, ‘here’ isn’t such a terrible place to be, is it?”

~~~

And now, read on…


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Holy smokes, y'all - more than a thousand hits in less than a month? You're crazy, get lives - no, screw that. Keep the love coming - I love you all, too. 
> 
> God. 
> 
> I do. 
> 
> Honest. *hugs everyone*
> 
> In order to celebrate this properly, this will be a kinda Christmas countdown - I'm aiming to upload the final chapter on the 24th! So, Happy Holidays if you're celebrating, and cheers if you don't - enjoy nevertheless!

“What on _Earth_ were you thinking?” 

Pete had always thought of his mother as someone you’d better not cross, even on her more relaxed days. This, though, was Chief Mom On The Warpath, Jane Lattimer Of The Narrow Eyes And Deadly Voice, long past ‘don’t cross’ and well on the way to ‘run for your life’.

He’d seen it a few times too often, though; he had _strategies_ now. “What d’you mean, what on Earth was _I_ thinking?” he answered, spreading his arms. 

“Don’t mess me about, Pete, you know very well what I’m talking about.” Jane, her own arms crossed by now, looked pointedly over to the living room sofa, where Artie was reading Winnie-the-Pooh to Livia. The kid was flung right across the book – how Artie could actually see what he was reading was nothing short of a mystery, but Pete figured maybe the old man knew the book by heart by now; reading-time with Artie had become a fixture over the last days (and Claudia so sneaked in whenever she could get away with it, too, pretending to fiddle with her tablet and listening for all she was worth. Okay, so he did that, too. At times. They’d all speak German in a jiffy at this rate.) 

“Yah, I _know_ , Mom,” he said out loud, “but it wasn’t as if this’d been exactly my idea, so I don’t see what I could’ve done!”

“Exert your influence to make your partner think things through before acting?” his mom flared, then put one palm to her forehead. “Oh, whom am I kidding. Still, this-” her hand came down again at the sound of footsteps, and her face changed instantly, to a mixture of affection and concern. “Myka, dear – how are you?” 

The old, familiar, brief ‘really not fine at all, but I’ll pretend for the sake of courtesy’-smile crossed Myka’s face, and Pete could have mouthed along with her when she said, “I’m okay, Jane. Thanks.”

Myka wasn’t. Pete wasn’t. None of them were. 

Because today was Leena’s funeral, and Artie wasn’t going.

Oh, he’d found a pretty unbeatable reason – so, yes, _obviously_ someone needed to stay with Livia while they went; someone who knew enough German to decipher the kid’s needs; someone who wasn’t the one person in the world (alright, maybe one of the two persons in the world) that Myka Bering would go to with her grief. 

Pete had no idea what had happened in Colorado day before yesterday, but he figured it must have been a real _bonding_ sort of experience because a) he’d heard them the night they came back (old house. Thin walls. Yah?), and b) well, talk about inseparable ever after. And Myka looked like Death warmed over today and Pete knew she’d be thinking about Sam and Dickinson as well as Leena (and maybe about what Artie had said about all their deaths in the twenty-four hours he’d erased, too), and the way his partner hadn’t let go of H.G.’s hand ever since the two of them had come down for breakfast this morning told him that today, it was his turn to take a step back, even though he wasn’t really sure if H.G. could handle things. She’d better, though. 

But who would help Artie handle his grief, huh? 

So Pete had volunteered to stay behind, too, to keep an eye on the old man. He didn’t like funerals anyway, and he still wasn’t really sure that… well. It wasn’t even a vibe, but still, something wasn’t… wasn’t _right_ , about the idea of burying Leena’s ashes. He hadn’t seen her ghost again or whatever it had been, but… 

So maybe he _wasn’t_ ready to let go. Maybe he wasn’t ready for closure just yet. He certainly wasn’t ready to go looking for it among a funeral congregation. 

“See you guys in a bit,” he called as he waved them off. Myka held one hand to her ear, pinky and thumb outstretched, and pointed the other at him very imperiously, raised eyebrows and Myka-glare and all. He gave her the thumbs-up, then waved again as the last car left the B&B’s driveway. 

“Right,” he sang out as he walked into the living room, tray in hand, dog on heels, “who’s game for cookies?”

“Myka’ll have your head if you pump sugar into the kid, you do know that,” Artie grumbled before reading on. “Besides, my cookies, _my_ decision, to withhold or dispense them.”

“Artie, man, cookies are anyone’s property as soon as the timer dings, that’s, like, some kind of universal rule, right?” Pete took three. “New recipe?” he squeezed out around them. “Serious good, man.” He poked Livia’s shoulder behind Artie’s back and sneaked the kid a cookie that way, too. The kid’s delighted (and sweeter-than-cookies-even) giggle had Artie harrumph. At least it was a good kinda harrumph, a walrus-Artie-kinda harrumph, a harrumph that said ‘it’s your head not mine, but I won’t tell ‘cause kids and cookies are meant to be and forget about the sugar’, at least that’s what arrived at Pete’s internal ears. Yup.

“German cookies. One of about a thousand different kinds,” Artie replied, holding out an expectant hand without missing a beat of Pooh’s story. Handing him a cookie and taking another two for himself, Pete figured that the man had the reading thing down like a pro, and continued to pepper him with questions about the cookies, because, hey, he could talk about food all day, and cookie questions beat the other kind by light years, right? 

_Hey Artimus, I know your Darth version shot her and all, but d’you think there’s any chance of Leena not being, you know, like, really dead?_

_Artie, listen, you think it’s possible that I saw Leena’s ghost in the Warehouse?_

_Maybe Leena’s still around in spirit, you know, trying to communicate?_

_Do we have, like, the real Ouija-board in the Warehouse, by any chance?_

Nope. Cookies. And a serious commitment to any sort of vibe or hunch or feeling he was getting. Or to any strange… thingy he might be seeing. 

Jeez. _Hi, my name is Pete, and I’m a Warehouse agent._

The day was far too nice for a funeral in any case. Funerals shouldn’t be in bright October sunshine, with orangey leaves and still-green lawns. Funerals shouldn’t be on days when you could see for twenty miles and run for ten even if the air crinkled with cold and your lungs would be wheezing and freezing but it would be great. Funerals of good friends shouldn’t be on days the likes of which you knew this friend would have enjoyed the he- the _heck_ out of. 

He’d found a crate of flower bulbs yesterday, when he’d brought the toilet paper stash Steve and he’d bought down to the basement. Bulbs went into the ground around now, didn’t they? And then he couldn’t help thinking that Leena would… and then Steve had hollered to hurry up and help him carry the package with the kid’s wardrobe they’d fetched from the p. o., and Pete had tried to shake the thought away, and his man Jinksy had been real good about not seeing the shininess in his eyes.

_Damnit, Leena. Only that should be ‘darn’, now, Pete._

He would have thought that asking Artie to take a walk with Livia and him would be pushing things, but Artie seemed as much at a loss for what to do after having finished Pooh-Bear’s tale as Pete was, so… a walk. A nice one, even, with much kicking of leaves and running races towards the pond in the park, with a dog beside himself with enjoyment, and even with an ice cream cone at the end of it, no matter what Myka would do to him (she didn’t need to find out, did she? It wasn’t as if she understood Livia’s German any better than he did. Oh alright, she did, but what were the chances that _this_ would come out, really? Today?)

He was glad he’d left a sticky note when they returned to a driveway full of cars once more. He wasn’t glad that the view meant they’d be facing the godd- _darn_ wake now. And his mom, who’d be looking at him with glassy eyes and touch him all the time and tell him to take care of himself twice as often as usual. 

No, he sure didn’t like funerals. So when Livia wanted to stay outside and swing on the swing, swingmaster Pete stood ready to push her, and assistant swingmaster Artie stood ready to… do whatever, just in case. 

And then Jane Lattimer cornered her son anyway, when the three of them came into the kitchen to get some liquids into the kid, and Artie simply dissolved, tugging Livia and her glass of milk along with him. 

_When faced with a possibly unfriendly situation, take the initiative and turn it to your advantage._

“Hey Mom, have a cookie. They’re German. Artie made them,” Pete began, holding out the tray. 

“Oh, I know they’re good; I already had one,” Jane waved them away, then crossed her arms again and leaned against the counter. “Now Pete-”

Initiative. “Mom, the Regents shouldn’t send H.G. on so many away missions anymore.” Gotcha. Seeing his mom flabbergasted never failed to make him want to air-punch. 

Jane was quick to shake herself out of it, though. “Pete, you know as well as I do that sometimes it’s necessary to-”

“Well, at least don’t send her alone, then, Mom! Or if it is a mission for one agent, well then send me. She’s needed here, Mom, and she needs to be here for herself, too.” Seeing his mom clench her teeth, he pressed on, “Myka’s got a plan and everything, you know, this completely awesome scheme where all of us share Warehouse duty and outside duty and kidsitting and even _chores_. It’s got squares to tick things _off_ , Mom. And we’re all on it; even H.G. said she’d try to cook, God save us all.” He’d have sworn his mother’s lips twitched at his fake British accent. “Anyway, you know what kids need, right? And seeing as there’s no way Livia can be with her mom, this is the next best thing, isn’t it?”

“And what would that be, Pete?” 

Ooh, quiz question. And such an easy one, too. “Well, people who love her,” Pete shrugged, “people she can rely on not to leave her.” He saw the sudden pain in his mom’s eyes, took a step closer and reached out to touch her arm. “And Livia’s got that here, in heaps.”

Jane swallowed and smiled briefly. “Depends on your point of view, as far as permanence is concerned. This is a dangerous job, Pete.”

“Which is why I said H.G. shouldn’t be out on her own this much. Hey, and when it comes to loving? We _score_ , Mom, _big_ time.” They were. He was still debating whether he wanted the kid to call him Uncle Pete or just plain Pete, but there was no question at all that he loved Livia and Livia loved him, and what did it matter that they’d known each other for barely more than a week. And the others were the same – sure, the kid didn’t have enough little fingers to have them all wrapped around, but that was exactly where everyone was.

“Well, your colleagues and you certainly are good friends with each o-” She was taking his words all wrong, but her take was even better.

“Mom, are you _kidding?”_ Pete stared at her, then started to gesticulate. “H.G. and Myka couldn’t love each other more if they’d gotten their hands on Cupid’s arrows – wait, d’you think they might have? Would explain a-” he was getting the patient-Mom-look. _Back on track, Petey-boy._ “And, Mom, Claudia and Steve,” he went on, “I mean, who cares if he’s gay, that’s love between ‘em, too, you know – it doesn’t have to be the kissy-gooey-sticky kinda love to be love, Mom.”

“I _know_ , Pete.” That look never wavered, and he remembered a discussion, not so long ago, where he’d tried to tell his mom that he and Myka were just friends – best friends, but just friends. She’d looked a little sad, then. But hey, having Myka as a friend beat everything he’d ever known, and he’d tried to tell his mom that, and she _had_ nodded and smiled in the end.

“You can’t take Livia away, Mom,” he said, pleading with his eyes as much as with his voice. “We’ll be good. I promise. Just… just give us a bit, to adapt.”

Jane laughed suddenly. “You’re dangerous, son.” Then, eyes still crinkled but more serious, she continued, “She _is_ a sweet child, isn’t she? All things considered. Speaking of which-” she handed him a note with a number and a name and a profession, “-this is a colleague of Doctor Calder’s; a psychologist specializing in working with children who’re growing up in foster families. I’ve heard of her work; seems she’s not only good at it, but also quite prepared to hear unusual stories.”

“Thanks, Mom.” He could think of nothing else to say.

“And call me, day or night.” 

“I will, Mom.” There was no point in fighting his impulse, so he didn’t. His mom seemed surprised by the Pete-hug, but closed her arms around him after only a moment. “Thanks,” he repeated thickly.

She stood on tiptoe to kiss his cheek, and pulled away from him, frowning at something on the floor. “You do realize that whether Livia stays or not isn’t just my decision, do you.” She sighed. For a moment, Pete was shocked at how small and tired she suddenly looked. It wasn’t quite a vibe, but-

“What’s wrong, Mom?”

“Pete… _Leena_. And too many dead regents.” She sighed again, then looked up at him with eyes too bright. “Which means too many new regents, and too many discussions I’ve had too many times before.” She waved his worried look away. “Don’t worry, Pete, I’ll – _we’ll_ be alright. The Warehouse will be alright.”

“Discussions?” Spidey-sense was tingling. Again, it wasn’t a vibe, but, as Skywalker would say, he had a bad feeling about this.

Jane grimaced. “Need-to-know base, Pete, I’m sorry.” He couldn’t help his thoughts jumping to his theories about the Regents and Artie and The Evil and Leena. He just hoped they’d do the right thing – Artie needed help, support, his family; certainly not the Janus Coin as he’d said back then, or any other kind of punishment. Maybe professional help, even; Pete wasn’t too sure how well Artie and Claudia were handling their issues, or how well Artie was handling his. They _were_ spending a lot of time in the Warehouse office together, and that meant Artie was _there_ , not hiding somewhere, and Claudia was there with him. But beyond that, the office and what happened there was a place his nose didn’t belong.

Maybe an Agents Anonymous meeting wasn’t that bad an idea after all.

“Jeez, Mom. What does this do to all of us?” He threw his hand about, drawing a vague circle.

She cocked her head, Mom-style. “Oh, come on, Pete, you knew what you were getting yourself into when you joined the Secret Service. You know you’d have to take orders and follow them. And you know that when there’s something worth protecting, protecting it is what one does-” she swallowed, and her eyes filled, but she pressed on, “-no matter the personal cost.” 

He’d have liked to smile at her, but he was awfully sure it would have come out a grimace. “Yah,” he sighed instead, “but I guess I hadn’t known then that I’d be taking those orders from super-zip-lipped Regent-Mom.”

Jane looked stricken for a moment, then inhaled deeply and nodded. “I know, Pete, and you know I’m sorry for that. I can only ask you to go on trusting us.”

“Course I do,” Pete said easily, “but that doesn’t mean I won’t be pis- ah, _angry_ if the Regents decide to take Livia away from us.” And he was half afraid that H.G. might blow a friggin’ fuse again if they did, but he didn’t think it was wise to volunteer that particular bit of information right now. He’d told his mom enough when he’d said that being here was what H.G. needed. As to Artie… well, sleeping tigers there, too, he supposed. 

“Our aim is to find a solution that’s both in the Warehouse’s and in the kid’s best interest. And to find it quickly. We aren’t cruel, Pete, but I can’t give you more than that, okay?”

“I know, Mom. I understand.” There was movement outside the kitchen window and he tensed for a moment, until he recognized the silhouette outlined against the setting sun’s light (or maybe it was the gait, or both). Myka, pacing. He began to make his way to the door. “Mom, I love you. Root for us, okay? And stay safe.” 

“You too, Pete,” he heard his mother mumble, “you too.”


	3. Chapter 3

“Heya, partner,” Pete called out softly. Myka seemed deep enough in thought to overhear his steps, and he didn’t want to scare her. She raised her head briefly and acknowledged him with an ever shorter smile, but didn’t say anything. Didn’t send him away either, though, so he felt free to join her pacing even if it made him dizzy. He knew she was busy not thinking about the Regent’s pending decision, just as she’d been when it’d been about H.G. back then.

Jeez, really, those two – it would be so tooth-achingly sappy, if it weren’t so difficult, too. 

He’d resented H.G.’s poké-ball return only partly because of the way she’d treated Kelly – it had hurt him, because her stunt with the compact had been the reason his happiest place had left him, and dang it, he’d been mad as heck. 

But. 

H.G. had hurt _Myka_ , and that had driven Myka away, and _that_ had … that had _cut_ him. To the core. Because while he’d been madly in love with Kelly, and would have happily had her be his happiest place forever, Myka was… Myka was his partner. In so many more ways than what government agents usually meant when they said ‘partner’, and hey man, they already meant it, like, _deep._

But Myka had come back because of something H.G. had said to her – okay, maybe she’d come back because of his clever maneuver of telling his then-ex-partner that he didn’t need her, or, or, or because she couldn’t resist his puppy eyes, or both; you never knew, right? Anyway, Myka had found it within herself to forgive and forget, and now… and now Myka was happy, and, if he knew her at all, probably feeling guilty about it because of Leena, and he wished he could somehow tell her it was okay, and he would totally rip H.G.’s heart out if she hurt Myka ever again, even just a little, no need to go for apocalypses at all.

And she loved Livia with all her heart, they all did, and if the Regents decided-

Really, judging by sheer protectiveness, Livia was perfectly fine to stay, wasn’t she.

“Helena’s been called in there a moment ago, to talk to the Regents,” Myka said, pulling Pete out of his thoughts. “They’ve spoken with me already; your Mom wasn’t there though…?” She left it dangling, and how could he not bite, seeing the worry in his partner’s eyes.

“I tried to talk her round,” he said quickly. “I mean, who if not me knows which buttons to push, right?”

“It’s not just her decision, Pete.” Myka sounded tired. She finally stopped her endless up-and-down along the porch, too, which encouraged him to put his arm around her shoulder. And booyah!, she was getting better at accepting the Pete-hug. She even leaned into it. “God, I just hope…” Her voice dropped away.

“I wonder if they’ll call in the rest of us, too,” Pete said when he was sure she wouldn’t go on. “You know I’m right behind ya, right? I mean, I love the kid, and your plan is awesome, and… and I don’t know what it would do to us if we lost someone else now. I mean, I know Livia’s only been here for ten days and all, and maybe it’s only these abandonment issues I have-” and only Myka who knew about them, and therefore only Myka he could talk about them to, and only Myka who would butt his shoulder with hers like that, “-but it wouldn’t be good if they took her away. It wouldn’t be right. We can do this.”

“I know, Pete.” Suddenly, Myka grinned. “You know, I got the same pep talk from Artie, and from Claudia, too. If that isn’t a sign just how good Livia’s presence is for us as a team, as a _family_ , I don’t know what is.”

“Speaking of family-” he began, because they hadn’t talked about the weekend she’d spent with Helena and Livia at her parents’ yet, but Myka hunched her shoulders and turned her face away, and he stopped. “Okay, so I’m not going _there_ , then.” 

“Thanks.” 

He hated how she just stared into space, and squeezed her arm. “How ‘bout today, then,” he tried, “can I ask about that?”

“It was… um. As nice as a funeral can be, I guess,” Myka said, the words coming out in a rush after the initial hesitation. “So many flowers. So colorful.” Uh-huh. Leena had asked, in the will they all had had to make, that no one should wear black, and of course everyone had honored that; you could almost forget that this was a _wake_ back in there. Then again, no one would. No one.

Pete nodded his understanding, and didn’t comment when Myka dashed her hand across her cheek. When that didn’t stop the tears, he dug into his pocket. “Hey _hey_ hey,” he sang out softly, “snazzy best friend will always have a tissue for ya.” 

Only Myka could hiccup a laugh between definitely-not-sobs like that. “Thanks, Pete.” Snazzy best friend shook it away with a dismissive snap of his fingers and a long-drawn-out pshhht, and Myka laughed again and bumped his shoulder again. “I _mean_ it,” she added.

“So do I,” Pete said, and made the sound again for good measure. Then Steve pushed his head around the door and called out to them, asking Pete inside. “I’ll root for ya,” Pete reassured her, and offered a fist bump to both Steve and H.G. who was standing behind him. The British face was unreadable as always (really, he had no idea how Myka could be so _sure_ sometimes), but the bland little smile she gave him by way of apology when she declined to bump his fist (well, he hadn’t really thought she would in any case) spoke of heaps and heaps of tension, he thought. But at least her standing here meant Myka wouldn’t have to wait alone.


	4. Chapter 4

“Helenahelenahelena,” Pete sang out in falsetto, opening the door to the B&B. He knew he didn’t quite sound like Livia, but he _was_ trying, and sometimes he came close enough to cause the Brit to fall for it. Myka would punch him when he did (even though she was sooo grinning too, like, on the inside), but the look on H.G.’s face was worth it every time. “Honey, we’re home!” he added for good measure. Myka did punch him for stealing that line, which was totally unfair since she had never once used it to his extensive knowledge. He was about to point that out to her when he noticed the tiredness in the corners of her eyes and remembered the phone call, about two hours ago, that had put it there. 

He’d heard her say ‘Hey Mom,’ in her ‘tired but relieved after a successful artifact retrieval, and pleased to hear from someone I like’-voice, and then he’d tried to tune things out when that voice had dropped to rock bottom suddenly, and hadn’t asked any questions when she’d ended the call too soon and with a glare. He knew that the relationship between Myka and her dad was kind of a see-saw thing. Some things took time, didn’t they, just like Artimus and his bouts of brooding. At least Artie had their weekly talk sessions. Myka and her dad… hadn’t.

So Pete had kept his silence until Myka had spoken up by herself. “I just don’t…” she’d said, then fallen silent again for two miles. Then, with a furious gesture, “ _How_ , Pete? How can he be this way about this, when it’s the most important and beautiful thing in my life? I don’t get it, Pete, I just… I just don’t get it.” And she’d shaken her head and bitten a fingernail and looked out the window in that forlorn-Myka way and he’d stopped at the next roadside shop they’d encountered and bought her the largest box of Twizzlers they had on display, and a dozen Danishes for himself to goof around with to make her smile. 

It hadn’t worked.

“The three of you could spend Thanksgiving with me and my family,” he’d offered next.

At least at this, she’d smiled, but still way too sadly for his taste. “Thanks Pete, but I wouldn’t want to intrude.”

“You wouldn’t,” he’d insisted. “I’m sure Jeannie would love it, and I _know_ Mom likes you. And she’s constantly asking about Livia, _and_ she’s coming round to H.G. too, I think.”

That hadn’t exactly been the right kinda thing to say, apparently. “But that’s it, don’t you see?” Sheesh, Myka was scary when she got all protective-angry like that. Even if it hadn’t been him she’d been angry at, that moment. “I don’t want Helena to still have to prove herself, to still have to persuade people of her… goodness, her value, whatever. I want her accepted, Pete!”

There had been nothing he could have said to that, really, because they both knew that, outside their little family (well, alright, and Mrs. Frederic, too. So: Regent-wise), fighting for acceptance was exactly what Helena still had to do. And even if she was his mom, Jane Lattimer was still a regent, and… and somehow, in a kinda uneasy way, Pete couldn’t even blame them, and he hated that he couldn’t, but he’d had his run-ins with mad-‘n-murderous H.G., and they had _not_ been grounds for trust. 

It hadn’t been easy to come round to H.G. Wells, even though he was fully on their side by now. But easy, it hadn’t been. And even though he’d seen that H.G. had tried to work for his trust, mostly, it had been for Myka’s sake that he’d given it. Not that he wasn’t going to tell them that, like, ever. 

So they’d finished the trip to the Warehouse in silence, and now here they were, back home with their little family, and still Myka looked so tired and sad. So, “Shower,” he ordered, taking her shoulders to push her in the direction of the stairs. “I’ll make tea.”

H.G., coming down from the first floor, raised her eyebrows when Myka pushed past her, with barely a wordless kiss hello. “Bad day?” she asked when she’d reached the foot of the stairs.

“You have no idea,” Pete said with a sigh. 

“Tea, then,” the Englishwoman nodded. “I can’t botch a cuppa too horribly, so it might be wiser if you prepared dinner and I took over beverage service. If you’re hungry at all, that is.”

“Oh, _I_ am. Don’t know if Myka is, though,” Pete said, leaning on the kitchen counter. “Did you guys re-organize the cabinets again?” he asked when he saw H.G. reach for one he would have sworn did not contain tea… stuff. Not bags. Never bags. _But of course not_ (and of course Peter Lattimer could do a British accent in his inner monologue). “You know you’re gonna be in trouble for that, when Myka finds out, right?”

“Really, darling,” Helena said in that ‘I’m being so disproportionately patient with you’ voice she was almost better at than his mom was, “while I certainly appreciate the sight of Myka standing on one precarious toe to reach for the higher shelves – how on Earth am I to do the one thing I’m permitted to do in this room if I can’t get to the accoutrements for doing so?”

“You might be able to explain it, but you’re still gonna be in trouble,” Pete grinned, pointing both index fingers at her. Oh, how he cherished the memory of the disastrous attempt at dinner that had led to H.G.’s being banned from cooking. ‘Oh, nonsense, darling, how hard can it be? It’s only applied chemistry and physics, after all’, yeah, right. The kitchen had smelled of burned curtains and, oddly enough (or maybe not), of chemicals, for _days_. H.G. had been in _deep_ trouble. 

Still, it had been a good thing that had happened that day (apart from the stingy smoke), because everyone had insisted H.G. take over Myka’s share of laundry duty instead, and oh _boy_ , had things gotten easier after that. Maybe a little rose-tinted at times, but definitely less, um, excessively sorted? The tint had been totally Artie’s fault anyway; _he_ had forgotten that sock in his shirt pocket, however the thing had gotten there. Unfortunately the majority had ruled that, after paying for a dozen new shirts, Artie was to be considered sufficiently punished and no one was to tease him any longer. Man, he’d had so many jokes left to make… But in B &B matters, team rule was team rule, just as talk night was talk night. 

Alright, uh, so maybe the thought of H.G. Wells having hands-on experiences with his laundry was a bit unsettling, but… 

Oh, hey, she was looking at him that way again. “Huh?” he managed.

“I _had_ asked about what particular brand of bad day this has been.” Realizing that this time he’d heard her, she turned around and busied herself with her ‘accoutrements’ again.

“Oh, right. Well, the snaggin’ and baggin’ went easy enough; and Artie’s taggin’ it as we speak, I guess, but…” He broke off, searching for words. Myka’s run-in with her family… was better left to the two of them, right? It wasn’t as if the day hadn’t held even more reasons for a bit of the blues. “You know how sometimes people are just… mean?” H.G. froze for a moment, then nodded without turning, and he went on, “I mean, the teachers and kids were nice enough, but the janitor… jeez, that guy was just _vile_ , man. He had the whole damn school terrified, and completely without an artifact, too. Right up to the headmaster.”

“I can see how witnessing such unnecessary cruelty would be… unbalancing.” She still had her back to him and her eyes on the teapot, but there was… something in her words. Not quite enough to kick off a vibe, but… something. Something hard, and dark. Then she turned around and Pete found himself looking at the woman he knew as his fellow agent, right down to that stiff-upper-lip smile that wasn’t really a smile at all.

“Yeah.” He kicked his heel against the cupboard he was leaning against, trying not to think of Egypt. “I mean, Livia’s got a while yet before she starts school, or even kindergarten-” Even though there happened to be a German-speaking kindergarten teacher in Univille, the team had ruled to wait until next year at least, in order to give the kid time to get settled before pushing something new at her. And, Ms. Mallmann or no, Livia needed to have at least a working grasp of English, right? Although that _was_ getting better; kid was _smart_. “-but… _man_ , I seriously hope people in Univille’s educational establishments are nicer, otherwise I won’t guarantee their health.” He shadowboxed a bit in order to demonstrate what he meant, but it only resulted in him being eyebrowed again, so he changed track. “Where is Livia, anyway? I’d have thought she’d be down the stairs and in Myka’s arms the minute she heard us?”

“Already asleep,” Helena answered with a quick grin that was way more comfortable (and true) than her smile had been. “We did a full round of the park to inaugurate the new snowsuit, and she was fast asleep mere minutes after we returned.”

“And who’d be so cruel and wake her up, right?”

“I do try to make full use of the chances life throws me,” Helena agreed modestly. 

“You know what I really don’t get, though?” he said on an impulse.

“Do enlighten me,” she said, still smiling a little. 

He wondered if he really should; it would probably kill that smile, but… “How can anyone,” he said, forging ahead, “even in the most kaput circumstances, decide to give this sweet kid away?” He scratched his head and looked over at her cautiously, trying to determine if she was going to go bananas on him. “I don’t get it, H.G.” 

She nodded with hooded eyes. “I have asked myself the same question quite frequently in these past few weeks, Pete.” Setting the steaming tea pot on the table and leaning against a chair’s back, her hand combed her hair, rubbed her neck, fingered her locket. “I had not much of a chance to get to know Laura Sperling. What little she told me…” she shook her head, lost in thought. “Sometimes I find I can almost, _almost_ understand her decision, but…” she sighed, meeting his eyes for the first time. It was all he could do not to look away from what he thought he saw in them. “I sincerely hope,” she went on with a sigh, “that I shall never find myself in a situation that would enable me to comprehend how a living, breathing mother would choose to leave her living, breathing child behind.” 

They both fell silent. After all, what could he reply to that? She’d gone mad with grief at losing her daughter, after all; of course witnessing another mother give up her kid would- 

She cocked her head, stopping his train of thoughts, and a second later Pete could hear it, too – Myka was coming down the stairs. H.G. turned to fetch cups, straightening her shoulders (and upper lip, probably) in the process.

“Hey Mikes, fancy pb&j’s for dinner?” He pushed himself away from the counter when Myka came in, and walked towards the fridge to get his own accoutrements.

It wasn’t until Myka had flopped down into one of the chairs and accepted a steaming mug that she answered. “Nah, thanks, Pete.”

“Not hungry, huh. I’ve heard of the condition.” He turned and grinned at her, she one-handedly wadded a flyer and chucked it at him, H.G. snorted a laugh, and all was as well with the world as could be, considering. 

This was family, and family was never easy, but family was good as well, and he would do his best to make it so. 

He’d probably need Claudia’s help, though.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> \- this chapter is told from Helena's POV -
> 
> Also, I took hair-raising liberties with H.G. Wells' biography as seen on Wikipedia, but then W13's script writers did that first, so there.

“Trying to get a rise, Agent Wells?” 

Helena chuckled, low and close to Myka’s neck, delighting in the gooseflesh that broke out immediately. “Of which sort?” She continued the massage, carefully brushing Myka’s still-damp curls aside.

“Either,” Myka huffed into the eiderdown. She had hurled herself onto the bed the moment Helena had closed the door behind them, but despite the location, Helena knew any form of massage tonight would be a comforting one. Or would, at least, start out as such. 

“Oh dear.” A gentle kiss, a more insistent tug at a shoulder, and discontented, gloomy Myka rolled over to her back. A further few subtly suggestive hints, issued in as innocent a way as Helena could command, resulted in a series of motions that saw, at its end, Helena leaning against the headboard, Myka in her lap, and a considerable amount of what Helena steadfastly refused to call nuzzling because that was something an animal would do with nose or snout. 

She resumed her ministrations to Myka’s neck, trailing feathery paths with her fingers until the rigid muscles relaxed a bit, then kneading more firmly until Myka’s head lolled with the motions. “My dearest, while I have every intention to brighten up your evening if at all humanly possible,” Helena took up where she had left the conversation lying, “I don’t want to burden you with further dwelling on the matter if you don’t wish to speak of it.”

“Pete told you, didn’t he.”

“He did,” Helena pressed a kiss to Myka’s temple, trying valiantly to ignore the darkness that was, once more, rising unbidden, at memories of unthinking cruelty and of cruelty that had had its reasons. Taking a deep breath, she forced some lightness into her voice when she said, “And I have met men of that ilk before. Women, too,” she added quickly, so as not to wake a false impression. “Nasty pieces of work, and surefire ways to ruin a perfectly fine day. But,” she kissed another spot, somewhat higher up on those charming curls, for Myka’s comfort as much as her own, “as I said, we don’t need to talk about it, my Myka.”

“I know.” Myka sighed and leaned in for a true kiss, a languid and yet soothing one that helped Helena put any gruesome thoughts aside. Nevertheless, it took a moment for them to fully disperse.

“You’re thinking too much. Again.” Myka was tugging at a strand of Helena’s hair. When Helena’s eyes and mind had fully returned to the present, Myka went on, “which, as I’m sure you know, is never a good thing before going to bed, and especially not tonight. Tell me something. Take my mind off things.” And with that positively imperious request, Myka wriggled away to lie on her side, facing Helena with hands beneath her cheek and expectant eyes.

Helena raised her eyebrows. “I’m not much of a storyteller,” she said, “would you like me to… fetch a book and read to you?” Her expression spoke eloquently of all the other ways her mind was immediately suggesting as means of achieving said end, ways in which she excelled, ways so enticing…

“No,” Myka replied absentmindedly, almost wistfully, proving (to Helena, at least) that her mind was in dire need of distraction of _any_ kind. They both were, if Helena was honest with herself. “I’d like to… I’d like to know something about you, if you don’t mind. About how you grew up, maybe?”

“Good grief, I was a terrible child,” Helena quipped, feeling strangely defensive. “I’d much rather not speak of those times for fear of estranging you, you see.”

“No fear of that, minou,” Myka murmured, causing Helena’s heart to skip a beat. No matter how often she heard Myka say words to that effect, or call her pet names (Helena would have to do something about being called ‘kitten’, of all things, one of these days), no matter how often Helena realized in some other way that Myka was considering this a committed relationship – it never ceased to fluster her. She was getting better at concealing it, though, and maybe, given time, she would arrive at a point where it would not throw her so. But, “So you were a troublemaker already as a kid, huh?” Myka continued, and Helena, with a little toss of her head, pulled her mind to the present yet again. 

“Oh, definitely,” she answered, smirking with the memory. “I never followed anyone’s expectations but my own. Sometimes I went out of my way to find ways of not following them. Perhaps that is what makes it so difficult to figure out how to live up to expectations now.” _Your expectations._ Helena did not voice that addition, but she was sure Myka heard it nevertheless. It was not a new thought, after all. 

It had been, at the start of this commitment – Helena had run into difficulties several times, due to the fact that she had patently failed to consider all the ways that a relationship, or sharing a room, could change those expectations. And there had been times when Myka had not been able to meet that with her usual patience. There had been an especially memorable incident after Myka had come back from an artifact retrieval with Claudia, who must have been particularly exuberant and incautious that day; Myka had refused to tolerate any ‘childishness’ from Helena’s part, and things had turned down sour with breathtaking speed after that. 

It was a good thing that neither of them seemed given to prolonged sulking, Helena thought – also not for the first time.

“It came to the point,” she went on with her story, prompted by a nudge, “when, upon my reaching legal age, my parents truly and irrefutably disowned me.” Helena dipped her head and tucked a strand of hair behind her ear, remembering how initial mortification had turned into insulted determination so very quickly. “I drew on my grandfather’s inheritance, which, luckily, was incontestably in my name, and traveled for a while. Belgium, France, Switzerland, Italy. Then, back to England via Austria, Germany, and the Balkans. My variant of the famous Grand Tour, if you will.”

“Quite the trip.” 

“Indeed. And much of it unaccompanied, how very outrageous of me. I believe it was that aspect, mostly, which induced my parents to refuse to even speak _of_ me, much less _to_ me. Or possibly the fact that I had taken to wearing men’s clothes while underway.” Helena smiled, the memory of the inordinate freedom she had felt upon first donning trousers still brilliantly exhilarating in her mind. Her parents’ reaction had been inevitable, all things considered. But that, at least, was something she had long made her peace with. “I do believe I came back a better person,” she continued, “crossing the Alps, at least, taught me that there were people more knowledgeable than myself, and that acquiescing to them was indeed in my interest at times.” She snorted a soft laugh through her nose. “Charles took his disreputable spinster sister in when she came back. Eventually. He never could say no to my whims.”

“That must have helped,” Myka interjected, again in a dry murmur. 

Helena cocked her head wryly. “It certainly was more… accommodating, than any other solution would have been. In all senses of the word,” she added with a quirk to her lips. “I owe him. If it hadn’t been for his leniency, I could not have continued to do what I did; at least not that openly. I tried to acquire knowledge in any way possible. I associated with entirely the wrong people. I did, as you might put it, whatever the hell I wanted.”

“You must have been lonely, though,” Myka said softly, and Helena remembered how distressed Myka had been in Colorado – clearly old hurts had been re-opened there, old battles re-fought. So when Myka stretched out a hand, Helena complied, sliding down until she lay fully on the bed, accepting Myka’s body in her arms, offering her shoulder for comfort and the opposite of loneliness.

“I had myself to keep me company,” Helena said in an equally low voice. “Quite sufficient, I thought for the longest time. And I had no patience for most other people in any case; too slow, too mundane, too narrow-minded, and myself too outspoken to hide my disdain over all of that. It took me quite a while to learn the virtue of keeping my thoughts to myself, and even that still did nothing to entice me to seek out other people’s company. Until I was recruited by the Warehouse. And, even more than that, until I happened to come across the fulfillment of sharing your life with someone.”

“Christina.”

Helena nodded. “I spoilt her. Doted on her. She was a far better child than I. Surely a better one that a mother like me deserved,” she sighed. “You, my Myka, are already a far better caregiver than I ever was.”

“But you _raised_ -”

Helena interrupted her with a decisive shake of her head. “I – well, Charles’ estate, rather, employed a nursemaid, and later a governess. They took care of the humdrum of child care, leaving me free to go on with my studies and work, and yet able to share the truly exciting moments of a child’s life.” The bitter taste of self-deprecation at those words surprised her for a moment. “Once, when she was a bit older than Livia is now, Christina fell ill,” Helena continued, grinding her teeth at the memory of those awful ten days. “I cared for her, worried myself sick over the correct treatment, and suddenly realized I had never before spent so many consecutive hours at her side.” 

She gave another soft, snorted laugh, still a trace bitter. “However much I loved my Christina, what I was doing was _not_ raising her, Myka; it took me a century of missing her, and barely more than a week of witnessing you care for Livia, to realize that. It’s curious, is it not, that, living in a society choked by conventions and customs and codices, I did nothing but scoff at them, and now, in an age that is so much more forgiving, I finally recognize that rules can be of benefit.”

“I think you’re giving yourself way too little credit, Helena.” Myka propped herself up on one elbow. “We are both raising Livia. Well, I guess all of us are, but the two of us are the primary persons, right? And you’re doing fine – I refuse to believe you weren’t a good mother to Christina.”

Caught in another of those instances of undeserved confidence, and unable to meet the corresponding expression in Myka’s eyes, Helena focused on the ceiling. “I’m afraid we’ll have to agree to disagree on that one for the now, my Myka. I simply lack too many of the necessary skills, and, rather more to the point, responsibility isn’t exactly my forte. And I believe that is a vital part of parenting.”

Myka’s finger on her chin pulled Helena’s head, and her gaze, inexorably back towards eyes that valiantly – and visibly – refrained from rolling. “You’re learning, though,” she said, delivering each word very emphatically and catching Helena’s attempt at counterclaim with her lips. “Now,” she said when they broke apart, “tell me something about Christina that will make me smile.”

How could Helena deny such an understandable wish, uttered in such a charming way? “She was so adorably, so seriously determined.” Her words produced a smile indeed, on each their faces. “She started walking and talking at such a very young age. I do believe it must have something to do with her later intractability – when we hired a teacher to educate her, she would only do those of the tasks he set her that interested her, and completely ignore the rest.”

“How very inconceivable.” The dry comment was greeted by raised eyebrows. 

“ _I_ certainly have no idea where all that stemmed from,” Helena agreed decorously. “I do pride myself with having imbued my Christina with enthusiasm, and everlasting curiosity, and the proper scientific approach to things.” She stopped for a moment, trying to decide on a more tangible memory to share with Myka. It was astoundingly easy to find the right one. “During my, oh, fourth year at the Warehouse, I guess it was,” she said, “I found her working alongside Nikolai in my private laboratory, dissecting a frog to his instructions. There were tear tracks on her face still about the poor creature’s fate, but she worked so very attentively and concentrated. Much more so than Nikolai, in fact.” The sight had filled her with so much pride, and… yes, endless wonder (even if the three of them had not been in the Warehouse proper), and such happy notions of a future in which her daughter would know that place of wonder as well as her mother did… “Not quite a memory to make you smile after all, I’m afraid,” Helena tried to joke through her constricted throat.

Myka caught one of Helena’s tears with her fingertip. “I wish I had known her.” Her words were as soft as her eyes, as her touch.

“I would have liked that, too, I think,” Helena said slowly. “And I am certain she would have loved you just as Livia does. But there is, however you go about it, simply no possibility of it ever coming to pass, so I’m afraid my memories shall have to suffice. If you want them.” 

“If I-?” Myka broke off, staring at Helena open-mouthed. Then seriousness replaced astonishment, and a hand replaced a finger on a cheek, and hazel eyes bored into brown ones so very intently. “Helena, if you feel you can share them, I’d be… I’d be more than happy. I just… I never really had the courage to ask, you know.” Myka held Helena’s gaze until she was, apparently, satisfied with what she saw within it. Then she kissed her, released her, and wound her limbs around her, arraying herself as comfortingly as she could. “I know how difficult this is for you sometimes. To…” A hand came up to gesture vaguely.

“Livia is not Christina.” The words, spoken to the ceiling, came easily, belying how hard-won they were. This insight, and the acceptance that Christina Wells was, truly and irrevocably, beyond her mother’s reach, had torn a large, gaping hole – into what, though, Helena was beginning to reconsider. ‘My soul’, she would have answered months, even mere weeks ago, but now she suspected it was rather the defenses she had built around her grief that those two realizations had pierced. 

“And that’s good,” Myka agreed immediately.

“That is… important.” Helena tightened her hold on Myka’s shoulder. “When I watch Livia, I do wonder what my Christina would have done or said in Livia’s stead, but that very thought means I think more of Christina’s life than of her death.” The breath she sucked in was deep enough to swallow most of her tears. Darkness still shuddered at the edges of it, but it was, day by day, memory by happy memory, becoming easier to keep it at bay. “And while the specter of my daughter’s death will never go away,” she continued, trying to convey that thought, “I find I can face it down with memories of life, both Christina’s and Livia’s. Still, that specter leaves me so very scared at times, and so very grateful about the security measures Artie and Claudia have installed here.”

Myka chortled. “So very grateful that you drive both of them mad with your ideas on improving them.”

It was alright to scowl at a comment like that, was it not? “Oh, honestly, Myka – I thought you would approve of my dedication to our safety.”

“Oh, _I_ do,” Myka said, jabbing a finger lightly into Helena’s side, “but I’m not the one you wake a three a.m., minou, complete with plans, schematics and a shopping list.”

“That happened only the one time,” Helena reminded her primly; “I email them, these days, or simply shove my notes under Claudia’s door. I do let people sleep.”

Myka’s reply was a kiss, a murmured comment on the importance of being grateful that Helena was working on security measures now instead of household electronics, and an adorable little fidgeting motion that aligned her more comfortably with Helena’s side. Then the taller woman sighed, deeply – _not_ the kind of sigh that preceded settling down for sleep. “Did Pete also tell you about the phone call?”

Helena frowned. “No. Should he have?”

Myka stayed silent for a moment, and Helena felt anxiety re-tighten the muscles she had soothed what could not have been an hour ago, until, with barely a moment’s warning, Myka leapt from the bed and crossed over to the window, staring into the snow-lightened darkness outside, her hands on her hips. “My mother called. Because of Thanksgiving.”

“That does not sound too-”

“She wanted to invite me,” Myka interrupted her, emphasizing the last word with voice and gesture.

Ah. Helena nodded, aware that Myka would see the movement from the corners of her eyes. 

“I asked,” Myka continued, her voice on the verge of breaking. It clawed at Helena’s heart and pulled her out of bed and to her lover’s side. “I asked her what about you, and Livia. And she… she said nothing, for the longest time. Nothing, Helena! And then she started to say she was sorry and I…” Myka cradled her head in the hand she had been waving about, voice dropping so low that Helena had to strain to hear it. “I hung up on her.”

Helena understood the implications of that well enough – the emotional turmoil Myka must have been in to not seek, as she usually would have done, to rectify the situation by talking; the retrospective guilt over having given in to the impulse to end, or the inability to continue, the conversation. “Myka,” she said, stepping in front of the taller woman to try and capture her eyes, “there are a number of ways that Livia and I could spend-”

“No!” Myka burst out, then continued in a more forgiving voice, “No. You… you’re my partner, Helena. Not Warehouse partner, I mean… life partner. And Livia is just as much our kid as if one of us had born her. You’re part of my life, both of you, and if my parents can’t accept that…” She broke off, eyes glassy, chin working hard, teeth worrying her lip. Helena kept her silence, even though her heart had jumped again at being called a ‘life partner’. Myka needed attentive listening, much more so than any frankly inopportune expression of elation. 

“I made so many compromises,” Myka resumed after regaining enough of her composure to do so. “For Dad, mostly, but Mom…” she shook her head, then flung out her hand, voice rising again, “I damn well bent over backwards just to get their approval, so often, and this, _this_ is a compromise I’m not willing to make.” The last four words came out forcefully, darkly, bitten off of bitter memories. Myka sniffed and looked at the ceiling, pressing the back of her hand against her lips before going on, in a smaller voice, “I’m… I’m not.” 

Then her eyes returned to Helena’s, set as seriously as her mouth. “All the time, I’ve fought to make him, them, _him_ , proud of me. So, okay, one day I realized that that wasn’t the ideal way to… to happiness, I suppose, and I… I tried to see things… tried to do them for _my_ sake, rather than their approval.” 

Helena nodded mutely, trying to convey her understanding. Some things never seemed to change – in scope perhaps, but not in quality. 

“In the Secret Service,” Myka went on, “I found a… a slot I fit in, I guess, but still, that strife for perfection?” Helena watched Myka’s shoulders slump, watched hazel eyes roam the wall behind her. “I don’t even _know_ , Helena,” watched a curly-haired head tilt sharply backwards with a long exhalation on its lips and hands around its neck. “I don’t know if I pushed myself the way I did for _them_ , or for myself. And then I came to the Warehouse, and it felt so right, and I so wanted them to understand, to be proud of what I’m doing here. When I… when we saved Dad from Poe’s notebook I thought… and then MacPherson showed up and I realized that without my working for the Warehouse, they wouldn’t have been targets, you see?” 

Again, Helena simply nodded. She was none too certain she was following all of what Myka was saying, but she recognized the sea in which Myka was floundering accurately enough.

“And now,” Myka continued, dropping her eyes to the windowsill, or possibly Helena’s midriff, “now you, and Livia… I thought he… you know, when Dad offered you second helpings that night at Tracy’s, I seriously thought…” Her face grew taut, each muscle tensing in response to her pain. “And then this… this _bloody_ phone call! I think I’ve never been closer to _not_ needing that goddamn approval anymore.” Myka’s voice was low but oh, so fervent. “I feel _this_ close to being able to say ‘fuck you and good riddance if you can’t accept this, if you can’t be happy for me for this’.” She met Helena’s eyes, defiance for the expletives and desperate longing vying for dominance in her expression. “But close isn’t there yet, and then I wonder if I really ever want to _be_ there, you know? Because ‘fuck you and good riddance’ leaves you pretty alone with yourself; and that is a lonely place to be, no matter how interesting the company.”

“I know,” Helena breathed. “I know, love.” 

Maybe it was that last word, or possibly the way she uttered it, that seemed to give Myka’s tears permission to fall. It took a long moment longer for Myka to give herself permission to accept Helena’s offered embrace; for all their enthusiasm in sharing most other passions, pain was one neither of them disclosed very well. 

“You know,” Myka sniffed, raising her head from Helena’s shoulder, “loving you would be so much easier if I didn’t think this much.”

“That’s quite the loaded statement,” Helena replied, quirking an eyebrow.

Myka tried for a smile, and landed somewhere between a smirk and a grimace. “You know what I mean, though, Helena. It’s…” she cast about for words, then huffed in exasperation and chose a different approach. “Knowing that I love you,” she continued, “finding that within me, is easy, you see? Simple as that,” she snapped her fingers. “Simple, straightforward, easy, true. It’s only when I start to think about things or to remember things that it gets complicated. But… but I can’t help remembering, can I, and anyway, it’s good to remember, right, ‘cause the past is what’s made us and,” she shrugged, either searching for words again or, which Helena suspected was far more accurate, simply dismissing the past as no longer holding any sway on their present, and ended her discourse with, “and I like that I think about things. I’m not going to stop doing that just for… for convenience.”

She looked at Helena as if expecting an answer, but for the life of her, Helena couldn’t think of what to say to the ease of Myka Bering, so lightheartedly, so nonchalantly explaining and accepting the Gordian Knot of their relationship. 

Myka grinned. “Gotcha?”


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> \- from this chapter on it's Pete's POV again -

Pete didn’t know how their Thanksgiving had gone, in the end. He figured the three of them must have been quite alone here at the B&B everyone had been visiting with their families, even Artie, although the old grouch had sworn that it hadn’t been for the holiday but for the fiftieth birthday of a fourth cousin twice removed or something. He himself had been at his mom’s and it had been great, but he couldn’t help thinking of Myka all weekend. And she’d known that he would, and that he’d want to call her, and that had been why she’d expressly (and repeatedly) told him not to worry about them. 

He’d texted her instead, and, in an attempt not to sound too mushy, had asked her if H.G. had brought a turkey down with The Grappler 2.0. That would have been so totally wicked; he’d daydreamed about it for ages, and he’d tried to talk the Brit round, pointing out the sheer awesomeness of it and how handy it would be to have the turkey all nice and tethered and hauled back at the push of a button. Nothing, though. Not even a confirmation whether H.G. had so much as rebuilt the gun he’d never even seen in action. Well, he _had_ gotten a pic message, but it had been one of Livia next to a snowman twice her size – not that that wasn’t a cute pic, but it was no grappler gun pic, right? 

Still, the kid had been grinning her ears off, and Myka hadn’t seemed too blue when he’d returned – well, alone didn’t necessarily mean lonely, not when she and H.G. were… 

Jeez, they were _unreal_. And so sweet. Okay, so maybe squeeing about them did make him a girl, but…

They didn’t show it much, oh no, not them. Wouldn’t catch _them_ holding hands (except for that one time at Leena’s funeral, but that was, like, totally forgivable) or, or _snogging_ on the couch. But Pete knew for a fact that H.G. made tea, each morning, for the two of them to drink in bed, ‘cause no matter how quiet she was on the stairs or in the kitchen, his _nose_ would tell him when she passed by his door on her way back. He even knew that when he got a whiff of Assam instead of the usual Darjeeling, their night would have been particularly, ahem, _short_ , so he’d have to try and not tease Myka too much – just as much as she deserved, right? Not teasing her was out of the question, of course, because each time he did, she’d scrunch up her face like, we’ve been all quiet and how can he _know?!_ , and it was just too perfect to ever, ever tell her. 

And he knew for a fact that Myka had reorganized her desk _and her sacred bookshelves_ to make space for H.G.’s stuff, and hey, if that wasn’t love, what was, right? 

Oh, and seeing H.G. try and teach the kid to button her shirt or pronounce the precious tee-aitch correctly was frackin’ _hilarious_. You’d think she’d be better at it, what with her already having been a mother and all, but she wasn’t all that patient, and Kid sure wasn’t either. Sometimes he and Claudia would swoop in and rescue their nearly-niece (Livia loved Claudia’s tablet computer _big_ time), but more often than not, they’d conspire to shoot photos or even videos of exasperated mommy-Helena, ‘cause that’s what irresponsible uncles and aunties did, right?

 _And_ they were following a larger plan with those videos anyway, a plan Pete couldn’t wait to see coming together. 

Christmas. _Big_ Pete-grin.

Artie was trying for a re-match with Doctor Vanessa in Vegas (go Artie), and Steve would be at his mom’s again with Claud, but both those things were a) tops for them and b) meant three spare B&B rooms to fill with guests, and ho-ho- _had_ he made a guest list. His mom hadn’t be hard to persuade to come over, nor Jeannie, and finally – well, he was still working on that, but he was pretty sure it’d happen. 

Yeah. Christmas.


	7. Chapter 7

“And then I spotted Laura Sperling, in the Christmas market in Cologne,” H.G. said, voice dark, face darker. Not quite as scary as Myka’s dark face, Pete thought, but close, damn close. They were all here in the living room; she and Myka had insisted everyone hear this.

Myka’s expression was even more of a scowl, if that was at all possible. She was pacing up and down behind the couch, one hand stemmed into her hip, the other gesticulating. “You didn’t just spot her, Helena. You followed her.” 

“Ouch,” Claudia said, obviously sensing the same thing Pete did, which was that _this_ was an argument that had been going for a while. Probably all the way back from Germany, if he knew his partner.

The redhead’s heartfelt comment (and Pete’s silent agreement) was drowned out, though, by Artie’s indignant, “You did what?!”

“Of course I did!” H.G. shot back, and – well, Pete had to hand it to her, he would’ve, too. Good thing Livia was in bed already, this discussion had the potential of becoming _very_ heated _very_ quickly.

“Yeah, Artie,” Claudia chimed in again, “course she did; I mean, hullo – that’s still Livia’s mom we’re talking about, right?” She turned to H.G., asking what they all wanted to know, “And then what?”

H.G. winced, a reaction rare enough to warrant raised eyebrows all across the room. “I approached her, spoke to her, and realized she doesn’t remember. Our meeting, the astrolabe, nothing of it.”

And _that_ led to more than just eyebrows being raised. 

“You _spoke-_ ”

“Aw, c’mon, H.G.?!”

“No friggin’ way you didn’t!”

Really, Steve was the only one to keep his silence, standing off to the side with his arms crossed, but that was one of the reason he was such a good agent, Pete thought. Appraise the situation, get all the facts, _then_ react. He wished he’d thought of that sooner.

So, facts, then. “So run that by me again, H.G.,” Pete said. “You’re in Germany, visiting with Livia’s former family because it’s all Christmas-y and you got a week off from Artie-”

“ _Will_ you stop harping about that,” Myka glared at him. “I’m telling you _that_ was _not_ a vacation. And it was only five days in any case.”

He gestured her protest away, concentrating on H.G. again. “And you’re done that, and stroll around the Christmas market, completely forgetting about souvenirs for the poor stay-at-homes-”

“Pete!” He took Myka’s punch like a man, because they deserved his ribbing, coming from the land of glühwein and lebkuchen with empty hands.

“-and you run into the kid’s mom, just like that?” He shook his head. “Are you even sure it was her? I mean, you didn’t know her that long, right?” He was only covering all the bases; surely he didn’t deserve the look he got from the Brit.

“Long enough, Pete.” H.G.’s tone was as icy as her body language, all crossed arms and legs and disdainful eyes. “And yes, she was wearing glasses that she hadn’t before, but she could have worn contact lenses then. And yes, her hair was different, but _please_.”

“Okay, so you were sure.”

“Completely.” She leaned backward slightly, casting a sidelong glance at Artie. “I called out to her by her given name, and she reacted. She didn’t recognize Livia, though, nor had she any memories of ever living in Berlin, so I changed the topic and passed myself off as a genealogist. I told her she bore a remarkable resemblance to a client of mine and managed to procure her email address. It would seem her last name isn’t Sperling any longer, but nevertheless I am positive it was her.”

“You did _what?!_ ” Artie repeated, spluttering even more than before. “Don’t tell me you wrote her, _please_.”

“Of course I didn’t.” Scornful H.G. turned away from Artie and became inquisitive H.G. by the time she was facing Claudia. “Darling, you couldn’t look into it and tell me-”

“Consider it done,” Claud replied instantly.

“Consider it _not_ done,” Artie bristled, chopping the air with his hands. “Let me clear this with the Regents first; they had her last, who knows what’s their plan with her.”

“We know very well that they had her last.” Claudia spat the possessive verb like a curse. “And we know so very well just how generously the Regents treat people, don’t we.” She shot a look at Steve as if asking him to speak up, too; Steve just tilted his head, still withholding judgment. He was the only one to keep his silence, though.

Myka began, “We don’t even-”, while Artie resorted to more or less intelligible spluttering again, drawing immediate disagreement from Claudia. Pete, meanwhile, tried to get more facts out of H.G., until-

“Frau Sperling does live in Germany again,” a familiar voice cut through the din. “And you are correct in assuming that she does not remember having a daughter any longer.”

Mrs. F sure knew how to make an entrance, Pete thought as everyone fell silent. She’d done it at Leena’s funeral, too, Claud had said; no one had seen her come or go but she had been there. From what he’d heard, she’d even shed a tear. She sure wasn’t anywhere near that now, though.

“The Janus Coin?” H.G. asked, her face more mask-like than Pete had ever seen it. 

“Indeed, Agent Wells,” Mrs. Frederic answered. “And before you claim that that is treatment undue her sacrifice, I’m here to inform you that Frau Sperling _asked_ for certain parts of her memories to be erased that way, _specifically_ those pertaining to Livia. I also can tell you that the Regents had considerable difficulties allowing it.”

“Difficulties.” H.G.’s voice was this close to a sneer. “Oh, but of course they had. But that didn’t stop them, did it.” She narrowed her eyes. “And where is the coin now? What did you do to the memories you took from her?”

“That does not concern you, Agent Wells.” Pete’s turn to wince now, because, yeah, that would go down ever so well with any of them, much less H.G. Wells. And sure enough, protest rained down on Mrs. Frederic from all sides. “Enough,” the caretaker said after a moment of this, her voice hard enough to cut glass. “Agent Donovan, would you kindly run this?” The memory stick she held up looked extremely odd in her hand. 

Claudia nodded and jumped up to insert the memory stick into the wall-mounted TV. The video started with a still of a small, dark-haired woman staring right into the camera’ lens. Then motion set in and they all observed Laura Sperling clear her throat, take a deep breath, and lift her chin.

“Whoever is watching this – I want you to know that I have asked to have parts of my memories removed. These memories have caused and are causing me a great deal of pain,” her mouth quavered for a moment, then she set it and went on, “and I will be glad to be rid of them. This message goes out to anyone who feels they should oppose my decision, or restore my memory. It is not made under any form of duress.” She spoke very meticulously – her German accent made her words sound a little odd at times, but Pete thought she really didn’t seem coerced or reading lines or something. “I want these memories gone, and I do not want them back,” she continued, emphasizing every word. “The Regents have assured me that I will not have that… talent of mine any longer, and that I will have a good life, and I…” she wavered, and for the first time her eyes showed anything else but sheer determination. They dropped to the table in front of her, came up brimming. “I look forward to that.” Nostrils widened as she took another deep breath, then added, “They have also assured me they will follow my decision, and I expect everyone else to do the same. So, if you’re thinking I’ve been mistreated, or forced into this, or something – I’m not. This is my choice. Respect it. Und falls ich mir das gerade selbst anschaue: Laura – lass es.”

The screen went blank. 

“I don’t believe this,” H.G. shook her head stubbornly. “I _will not_ believe this.” Myka moved to stand behind her, even put a hand on H.G.’s shoulders in a rare display of closeness, or maybe an attempt to prevent any form of outburst more spectacular than words. She was pretty glassy-eyed, Pete saw. He was sure Myka was just as upset as their British agent was, but she was being Myka, and somehow, her gesture didn’t calm down only H.G. but him, too. 

“Agent Wells,” Mrs. Frederic’s voice was still hard enough to make him shiver, “I was there when this recording was made. I was there when Frau Sperling talked to the Regents, when they explained about the Janus Coin. I was there when both parties determined, in specific detail, which memories were to be erased, and I was there to make sure that the Janus Coin was applied exactly as agreed upon. As you have just been told: Laura Sperling was not coerced into this.”

“But what about the evil?” Claudia asked, frowning deeply. “Y’know, the astrolabe-Jekyll-n-Hyde thing? And Livia, what about Livia? She records a message like this and doesn’t lose a single word about the daughter she’s snubbing? I mean, not even a, you know… hello, goodbye kinda thing? An explanation, for Chrissakes?” 

“It really is of no consequence to this conversation, Agent Donovan,” Mrs. Frederic told her, a bit more gently than she’d been towards H.G., “but the evil was taken care of, and Frau Sperling left a second video for that exact purpose, to be shown to Livia, and Livia alone, at an appointed time.”

“Great,” Claudia muttered, slumping back into the couch, “just great.” It was Steve who mirrored Myka’s motion, walking over until he could touch one of Claudia’s shoulders. She jerked it away, shaking her head, “No, Steve! No. This… this isn’t right. This is so not right, everybody. We can’t just… this is wrong. The same kinda wrong we’ve seen before, from you,” her finger speared Mrs. Frederic, “and the Regents. You… you _use_ people. And you say all these great glorious words, like sacrifice, and… and duty, maybe even destiny, and I bet you’re all doing this little victory dance deep down inside when they fall for it and do whatever you want from them _willingly_. And then you go ahead and mess with their lives and _then_ you take away the memory of the good they did? The good they did _in your name?_ How can you even live with yourself like that?”

“I agree,” H.G. said in a hoarse voice. “Not necessarily with all you said, Claudia, but,” she fixed Mrs. Frederic with a stare so quietly boiling with rage that Pete was worried either of the two might burst into flame at any moment, “I do think it is utterly and fully _wrong_ that, with your agreement to use the Coin, you facilitated Laura’s escaping a pain that defines her.”

“It was her decision to make, Agent Wells. Just as the Bronzer was yours.”

“Whoa, whoa, hold it, Mrs. F,” Pete said, when both Myka and H.G. balked violently. “I mean, we know just how well that ended, don’t we. No offense, H.G., I’m on your side here,” he flashed the Brit what he hoped she’d recognize as a reassuring smile, trying not to show how he completely didn’t want to be caught opposing the Warehouse’s caretaker. “I guess what I’m trying to say is it’s not good, this evasion thing.”

“Exactly,” Claudia spoke up again, “but hey, that’s what cowards do, isn’t it? Oh, well, if it’s her _choice_ ,” she said mockingly, “yay and hooray, let’s wash our hands off it and go have dinner instead of, oh I don’t know, maybe _persuading_ her it’s not a good idea to have her mind dissected?” She was taking a deep breath, probably for more along those lines, when Artie’s low voice stopped her.

“Claudia.” _Moving in for the father-daughter talk,_ Pete thought, watching the old grouch sit down next to the youngster. And sure enough, Artie went on, as softly as Pete had rarely heard him, “You remember that we talked about people and choices, right? When we thought that Steve,” he shot Jinks a glance that was almost apologetic, “had changed sides on us. Bottom line is, people do make choices, and sometimes other people don’t understand these choices, because they aren’t in the possession of all the facts that the person making the choice is _basing_ that choice on, you understand?”

Claudia frowned as she tried to parse that. Well, they all did. 

“So,” Myka said in her ‘I really don’t like the sound of this’-voice, complete with matching frown, “so Artie, what now? You’re suggesting we just…” she shook her head, slowly, “we just let this lie?”

“That’s not what I’m suggesting, that’s what we’ll do,” Artie said. “We don’t have all the facts, so I don’t see how we could justify going against what Mrs. Frederic is _expressly_ telling us the Regents, _and_ Ms. Sperling, want.”

They all turned to where the caretaker had been only seconds before. “Well, good night to you too,” Pete muttered under his breath, then turned to where Myka still stood behind H.G.’s chair. 

“And that’s it?” Claudia wasn’t going to let go so easily. 

“Claudia.” 

“Man, that tone doesn’t work twice a night, you know,” she sighed, looking at the ceiling before rounding on him again. “Don’t you see-?” 

“People have to make their own choices, Claudia,” H.G. interrupted her. Pete couldn’t see her eyes because she had them closed, but her face was still pretty much sans emotion (it wasn’t as if Myka’s didn’t hold enough sadness for both of them anyway). Her voice though, that usually so chipper British hopping thing, was low and sad and left Claudia speechless. “A choice, a deed, a word even, might seem a terrible mistake to you, when it might be the only thing that person can possibly say, do, or choose to stay sane, or safe, or true to herself. And even if you think you know better than they do what’s good for them – how can you be sure, and, perhaps more importantly,” she sighed, and tilted her head so that it touched Myka’s arm for a moment, “at what would you stop?” Then she straightened again and opened her eyes to look at their youngest agent, and man, that look was avec emotion if Pete had ever seen one, not that he could put names to all that it contained.

Claudia opened her mouth, frowned, frowned deeper, shut it again. Then her chin jutted forwards. “Okay. Okay, so… I mean, I even kinda get that. I think. Don’t do unto others and so forth. But, H.G., I thought _you_ …”

“Oh, I can assure you, Claudia, I find the thought of anyone undergoing that treatment inexpressibly despicable,” H.G. said. “But I also very much understand the wish to forget certain things, and the length one might feel compelled to go to in order to achieve that.” 

Her words damn well echoed, and broke up their meeting more effectively than even Artie had ever managed; the room seemed too dark even with the lamps and the fire and all that. 

Pete jogged up to catch Claudia’s elbow as she went up the stairs. “Fancy a change of topic?” 

Her eyes lit up. She knew what he meant. “Bring it on, dude. Bring it the hell on.”


	8. Chapter 8

It was going to be perfect. Or as close as anything could be, three days after their run-in with Mrs. F. 

He wasn’t quite sure that H.G. and Claudia were really letting it lie. No, make that ‘he was quite sure that they weren’t’. Then again, those two might be sticking their heads together over a bazillion of things – the security measures they’d come up with were, to quote a certain British author he happened to know, ‘Aces’. He just hoped that for as long as his mom was here, things would be ‘Christmas with Pete’s mom’ instead of ‘head-butting with a Regent’. 

And now Christmas Eve (well, afternoon, really) was finally here, and things were going to be perfect; the ground was covered knee-deep in snow, dusk was falling, candles were burning, the aroma coming from the kitchen was nothing short of divine, _and_ he’d just gotten the phone call that clicked the last puzzle piece into place. Oh, and Artie had left seven different kinds of cookies. _Seven._

“Ain’t it great?” he said expansively, catching Livia in his arms, flopping down with her on the couch and tickling the kid until she squealed. “You guys will love Mom’s cooking, I swear,” he told his nearly-niece and the two women opposite him in the easy chairs. Jeannie hated cooking, so Myka had volunteered to join Jane in the kitchen, and H.G. – well, she wasn’t really allowed near the foodstuffs anyway, and while Jane was putting up a real nice face and all, it didn’t hurt to be a little tight-fisted with regards to close contact in the vicinity of knives and open flames.

“It does smell enticing,” H.G. said, probably – jeez, _hopefully_ – oblivious to his thoughts. “I take it there will be turkey for you after all?” So maybe he had spoken a bit too sadly about not getting any turkeys, grappler-gunned or no, at Thanksgiving. But did she _have_ to-?

“Aww, you know, H.G.,” he drawled, releasing Livia to be clearly visible for Jeannie, “Mom was right when she said turkey for three was too much, but turkey for-” he caught himself just in time – she didn’t know, and he couldn’t spoil it now, could he? “-all of us?” he finished instead. “Pretty perfect match.” 

“Not so sure about that,” Jeannie signed at him, “I told her you and a third of turkey sounded about right.” She poked his stomach, and H.G. snorted a laugh. Pete was pretty sure the Brit didn’t know ASL, but Jeannie’s general direction hadn’t been too hard to understand, right? Livia, for one, certainly had no clue, but she was showing it in a different way, big curious eyes fascinated by Jeannie’s fingers. 

“Hey _hey_ hey,” Pete’s face lit up, “you two wanna learn how to do this?”

Myka and his mom came back from the kitchen halfway through the first lesson (‘hello, how are you’), and jumped right in with them, and he enjoyed his own private bit of perfection for a while until he remembered that there was more to his plan yet. He left Livia’s and H.G.’s education in the competent hands of his mom and sister, air-punched in celebration of that awesome pun, and went to get the memory stick he’d been guarding like the apple of his eye ever since Claudia and he had pronounced their work complete. 

“What’re you doing, Pete?” a frowning Myka asked when he returned and busied himself with plugging the stick into the living room’s TV. Trust Mykes to notice first, he thought before turning with a grin.

“We are _not_ having ‘A Wonderful Life’ tonight, folks,” he clapped his hands and rubbed them, “or rather, we are, but of a completely different kind. C’mon, H.G., get your British b-, um, self over there on the couch and enjoy the heck out of it, ‘cause it’s the greatest gift you’re ever gonna get.” He grinned to take the bite out of his words. It wasn’t as if he’d had any idea what else to give her.

She took a seat next to Myka and then tilted her head at him, eyebrow cocked. “Righty-ho, then, Mister Lattimer.” Jeannie took her cue, too, and went over to perch on an armrest.

Hanging in the doorframe, he mouthed H.G.’s righty-ho right back at her, friendly-like, while he switched on the TV and navigated through the memory stick’s contents. 

“Aaaaand here we go.” They wouldn’t notice him leaving once the video ran, he was sure of it.


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, here comes the last chapter. Thank you for following this Christmas episode, if you will - it is not quite like the other Warehouse Christmas episodes, though: Events in here occur in the timeline of my Chrysalis series. They will be developed further and referenced in future fics. 
> 
> Happy Holidays to you all!

_You are quite certain that not in your most elaborate imaginations of your future you would have ever anticipated this. You try not to think of Christmases past anymore. It is surprisingly easy, even, all things considered – American Christmas traditions and weather conditions are different enough to resist thinking of London, and the past three years honestly do not bear thinking about, but this, here…_

_For certain, there are keenly felt and deeply lamented absences. But there is, as well, the aroma of home-made food and open fire in the air, the soft brilliance of candles on every horizontal surface out of the reach of a child of four, and a festive if rather gaudy tree at one end of the room. There are stockings hung along the mantelpiece, there is a multitude of parcels hidden throughout the house; there is, even, Jane Lattimer trying her best to be warmhearted towards you._

_These days, and today especially so, you feel as though you are living in a shiny bauble of perfection, you muse as you watch Livia’s fumbling fingers trying to shape ‘I love you’. It is, of course, a perfectly reasonable phrase to teach her on this day and in this company. You marvel at how quickly the child picks it up, and you swallow when Jane tells the girl to practice because, right enough, who does Livia practice her newly-won ability on but Myka and you? The way your partner’s hand reaches out to you, the way she squeezes when you take it, does not need to be translated. Myka feels it too, you are certain of it._

_And then the TV flickers to life and Pete Lattimer slips out of the door, but you barely notice because it is not a show or a movie that he has switched on, it is-_

_You. And Myka. The two of you, and the three of you, in photographs and video clips arranged to incredibly sentimental music you do not recognize. Myka does, though; slings her arms around you and holds you almost painfully tightly while your mutual ward squeals with delight about seeing herself on the large screen._

_There is the snowman photograph you remember Myka taking and sending to Pete at Thanksgiving, and a video you took of Myka and Livia making snow angels on the lawn a few minutes later._

_There is footage of Livia chasing Trailer the dog around your legs, and vice versa – you remember how Pete cheered the two on, how you fought to stay upright, how Myka laughed tears, how you wished the moment would go on forever. Claudia recorded this, you are certain of it._

_There is a series of photographs Pete must have taken, or maybe Artie; it shows all three of you engaging in a fight of fallen leaves on a crisp and beautiful American autumn day, barely three days after the child arrived here with you._

_The next picture shows Artie reading to Livia; in the one after that, taken from the same angle and probably not even twenty minutes later, the two of them are fast asleep on the very sofa you are sitting on._

_You watch, along with your loved ones, a few more recorded moments, all of them utterly mundane and yet so immeasurably precious to you: the usual shared breakfast – you still remember everyone teasing Claudia for filming something so ‘unexciting’. Livia in her booster seat in the back of Myka’s car, Steve next to her, both sleeping, heads tilted towards each other. Myka and you simultaneously haranguing a distinctly henpecked-looking Artie while Claudia slips past the lens, embarrassed hilarity on her face._

_The whole video is interspersed with photographs that are amusingly similar to one another – in each, the photographer has caught either you observing an oblivious Myka, or Myka observing oblivious you, and, invariably, there is a smile on the face of the observer which almost seems too small for all the love it holds. Apparently, your fellow agents have realized Myka’s and your penchant for doing this; but then, noticing details is part of the job._

_And finally, lastly, to a truly exorbitant swell of background music, a rare and indubitably stolen moment of Myka and you in the Warehouse library. You had thought your words had made your wish not to be disturbed in there more than comprehensible, but, seeing the result of the transgression, you cannot find an ounce of anger at the perpetrator, whoever it might have been._

_The two of you are sitting next to each other, not quite touching, but still so very visibly together – you are leaning towards her ever so slightly, about to speak (you did, seconds later; you remember the moment), her head is tilted, already listening to what you are not yet saying. You are both of you still engrossed in your books, though, and softly lit by lamplight, and, sentimental as it sounds, haloed by love._

_Your heart opens wide, and so, strangely enough, does the living room door._

* * *

“Dad…”

This is it, Pete thought. This was the make-or-break moment, and from the look on Myka’s face, she was closer to the latter than the former. 

“What-”

“You got a good friend there, kid,” Warren Bering said, nodding in Pete’s direction. “Sent us that video, too, a few days ago.” He cleared his throat, after being prodded in the back by his wife, and went on to say, “Well, ah… here we are, then, I guess.” He ran a hand across his scalp and, like the throat-clearing act, this was so Myka (well, except for the bit where she had a lot more hair) that Pete had to scratch his nose to hide his grin. “Merry Christmas, Miss Wells. Myka.” Another, even sharper nudge from Jean, and he reached out a small parcel to H.G., and, almost on afterthought, a much larger one, wrapped in bright paper, to his daughter. “For the kid. For Livia.” Jean Bering was carrying parcels, too, Pete noticed, perking up even more. Good friend, eh? Maybe he-

“Livia’s right here, Dad,” Myka said, arms still crossed but relaxing a little when she watched H.G. accept the parcel and turn it around curiously. 

“Livia, sweetheart,” Myka’s mom took the initiative then, “do you remember us? Myka, you said her English is getting better, right?”

“I…” Myka cleared her throat and Pete had to grin again, “I did, yeah. Livia, hey – do you remember my Mom and Dad?”

The kid, who’d been hanging back until now, looked up at the proffered parcel with eyes big as saucers, then at the man holding it out to her. She threw a glance at Myka, another one at H.G., and, upon receiving two encouraging nods, stood up and tromped along the couch’s seat until she was within reach of her Christmas gift. 

Pete knew the kind of look the kid was giving Warren Bering. Either Livia had been born with it, or the last three months had been enough to turn her into mini-Myka – that scrutiny was hard to bear without breaking into a sweat, especially if you happened to _be_ the one who’d taken the last cookie. 

So, hats off to Mister Bering when the man said, “Merry Christmas, Livia,” wriggling the parcel a little to encourage the kid to take it. And take it she did, with a shyly mumbled ‘thank you’ and a quick retreat into the safety of Myka’s finally uncrossed arms. 

“Merry Christmas, Mykes,” Pete said so that the silence wouldn’t get too loud. 

She rounded on him. “ _You!_ Pete, you… you-” she broke off and dashed a hand across her cheek, then held it out to him. 

He would never deny a Pete-hug to a woman who asked for it, much less to a woman who happened to be his partner who happened to be his best friend who happened to be a human being in need. Okay, so the little one and her big present were a bit in the way, but who cared about that at a moment like this?

And he would never forget the look on Myka’s face when H.G. guffawed, held aloft the edition of The War of The Worlds she’d just unwrapped, and said, “It’s signed, Myka!”

“No way,” Pete let go of his partner to jump to H.G.’s side. “Lemme see that.”

“Well,” he heard Warren say with another little cough, “you said you were related, and…”

“Hey, H.-, um, _Helena_ – is that…?” Not quite knowing how to formulate his question, Pete fell silent, finger still on the handwriting he thought he recognized. _Related?_ So the Berings didn’t know yet just who their daughter’s girlfriend was exactly, huh? Well, he wouldn’t blow that cover, not now anyways. Would be fun, though.

The smile with which she responded went all the way from disbelieving to full-blown happy, passing amused, thrilled and delighted on the way. Then Helena Mysterious Middle Initial Wells turned it, full force, onto the one who’d given her the book – jeez, the man was seeing that smile for the first time, Pete would bet; he didn’t stand a chance. “Thank you, Mister Bering,” she said, hand across her heart and bowing slightly. “You cannot possibly know what this means to me.” 

“I could explain,” Pete offered helpfully.

“Shut up, Pete,” Myka and Jane said simultaneously, and then the oven timer beeped.


End file.
